Earlier this week, Gov. Kay Ivey signed HB 379 into law, which is a bill that will mandate so-called chemical castration for certain sex offenders as parole condition for early release.

The law received headlines all around the country, despite Alabama joining several states, which includes California, Louisiana and Florida, with chemical castration laws already on the books.

If the bill’s sponsor had his way, it would go much further. During an interview on Huntsville radio’s WVNN, State Rep. Steve Hurst (R-Munford) explained his push for the legislation but added that he would prefer surgical castration or even death for some offenders.

“I did say this, and I still say this, and I’ve told the media, and I’ll tell you – the way I look at it, it should be surgical castration,” Hurst said on “The Jeff Poor Show.” “But if somebody molests a small child, to be quite honest with you, they ought to die.”

@Bill:
“This guy running his mouth needs to keep his mouth in check[.]”
—–
I disagree. What better way to show animus and intent than to say such things? This can only play poorly for the Legislature in a court challenge. (Wasn’t it NE or OK where a legislator’s emails and words helped a RC case?)

This is exactly why the solution can’t come from legislation. There are elected people like this everywhere and they have the absolute support of the voters. The solution to the registry lie must come from the Supreme Court. There are protections in place, via the Constitution, that very clearly tell us that what has happened with the registry is illegal. Just the other day, Clarence Thomas made comments about dumping precedent in cases that warrant it. Most people thought he was talking about Roe. Maybe he was. But this is an opportunity to find out. There are strict Constitutional scholars on SCOTUS now. It’s time to find out if they believe what they preach. Begging elected professional liars to make things better for us is a fool’s errand. By doing this, we got a “tiered registry” that is the biggest scam I have seen since the gas tax. We need to get the courts to tell the professional liars that what they are doing is illegal. Anything less is just a waste of energy and resources.

@Matt, I totally understand that we want SCOTUS to save us. The reality is that the Supreme Court historically has not started new social trends, they follow them. If you look at specific issues, you will see that the groundwork for social change had already been started by the mistreated people groups by changing society’s view of them at a grassroots level. There were no magical SCOTUS bullets in civil rights history. In fact, SCOTUS made horrible decisions that reflected society’s current prejudices, and only reversed themselves when society changed views.

Gays and African Americans offer excellent examples of how lasting change was made.

On a one-on-one level, gays came out to their families and friends, which made it harder for them to vote for someone who would hurt their family member or friend.

On a local level, African Americans performed carefully-coordinated civil disobedience and told their stories to the media. Gays performed civil disobedience to highlight their mistreatment by police.

On a national level, Native Americans stood in front of cameras, telling violations of treaties. African Americans marched arm-in-arm in front of national news reporters, and their brutal treatment by police made Americans cringe. Americans wanted to feel good about themselves but they couldn’t when they saw what their attitudes had resulted in (Gandi got Indian independence using the same technique against the British), so this built national support for the Civil Rights Act.

Just as a pyramid is stronger than a tower because of its wide base, to get lasting change in the courts we must establish a foundation of sympathetic cases in lower courts, then State Supreme Courts, then Federal Courts, then the US Supreme Court. Most people don’t know that African Americans carefully coordinated this and were successful. But they didn’t depend on just the US Supreme Court to save them.

THE LAST THING YOU WANT IS TO RUSH A SHAKY CASE WITH FEW LOWER COURT DECISIONS TO THE SUPREME COURT AND HAVE THEM MAKE A NEGATIVE DECISION. THAT WOULD TAKE YEARS TO REVERSE!

What registrants and our families are lacking is our willingness to tell people were are on the registry, and share our stories on how it affects us. We would rather isolate so we don’t get hurt.

Writing comments on websites is cathartic. Making calls and writing letters is very important for legislative change.

But major change in society and the courts will not happen until we are willing to take the risk to share our stories with family and friends, at an appropriate time and appropriate way. We won’t change society until families who are affected by the registry are willing to speak up in front of the media.

Gays were able to change society’s view of them dramatically. In the 1960s, gays were considered sexual predators, waiting to grab boys and convert them to homosexuality (crazy, huh?) Today, a gay is running for President, and gays are accepted by most of society. To earn that, gays had to come out of the closet.

For registrants to stamp out the hysteria and be accepted back into society, we must also “come out of the closet”. That starts with making friends with the community around us, and becoming part of it. Yes, it involves risk. Not everyone will 100% accept us when we choose the time to share our story, but when they get to know us as friends, it is hard for them to treat us as cartoon monsters, just as happened with gays.

So maybe an additional motto for us should be: Be part of society, make friends, and share our story at the right time and in the right way.

@Roger: “But major change in society and the courts will not happen until we are willing to take the risk to share our stories with family and friends, at an appropriate time and appropriate way. We won’t change society until families who are affected by the registry are willing to speak up in front of the media.”

Stirring words. Doubtless true. Not gonna happen.

Sharing with family would be relatively easy. But there is no need to share with family; they already know and are often impacted by the restrictions that are placed on us. We are the reason why they suffer. But if anyone could share their story in a positive way, it is them. Their story might garner some sympathy. Our story will not, and sharing it will just paint a bigger target on our backs.

@CR, I think you misunderstood what I meant by “our stories”, I never indicated we should tell our offense details to the world and play the “poor me” game. That is not appropriate. I mean we should share how we are doing anything we can to not reoffend, and share how being on the registry negatively affects our lives.

I agree that our family members would be a more sympathetic face than us if they are willing to talk to the media about how they are hurt by collateral damage from these laws and attitudes.

And I agree our immediate family knows our situations and how it affects us all. However, there are plenty of other family members who don’t really understand the emotional and financial impact it has on us. And there are many non-immediate family members who may not even know anything about our situation.

Most importantly, we must be willing to mix with society and make friends. It is a basic human truth that it is harder to condemn someone we know because they don’t fit a cartoon stereotype.

I am not willing to isolate for 50-80 years and hope that society magically changes it’s attitude.

I’m not ashamed to be Registered. I don’t allow people to shame me or call me names. I accept what I did, why, and the punishment for it. But I don’t accept stupidity or endless, increasing, idiotic punishment.

I agree with “telling our stories” but I do not let that include any discussion about what I did in the past or why I am Registered. I make that a rule because Registries are unacceptable and people in general cannot be reasonable. So we don’t get to talk about anything that I did. It was adjudicated and settled.

Further, I won’t talk to people about anything that I’ve done when I know for certain that they could have done 100 times worse. They could even have been convicted of something 100 times worse and big government didn’t tell me about it.

I live a completely normal life. I have surrounded myself with solid family, good friends, and good, trustworthy people. It doesn’t matter to me at all if “Not everyone will 100% accept us”. I don’t care about people who won’t “accept” me. I don’t need them and I don’t want them around me, my family, or friends. You know how people are crucified if they bash gays or “coloreds”? That is what needs to happen to people who support Registries. Because they are truly backwards, regressive, awful “people” who are more interested in their personal feelings than they are about any facts or reality.

Let’s not forget as was mentioned elsewhere that SCOTUS upheld internment camps for the japanese in WW2. Over at sosen there is a better breakdown of such decisions and their reliance on inaccurate studies as is the case with registered offenders.

Oh, please. We don’t owe the public crap! They were sold a lie with Megan’s Law by the crooked lawmakers. If anything, THEY should apologize for exploiting their constituents unwarranted fear and insecurities, but they’re too proud and they’ll never, ever admit wrongdoing.

You don’t have neighbors.. you have two-face hypocrites that bad-mouth you behind your back. Don’t fall for their olive branch, white dove routine.

@Facts, I don’t know where “owe the public” came from. This has nothing to do with owing anything. It’s about changing public perception, which is the ONLY way persecuted people groups have made lasting change. Google “history of the gays civil rights movement” as the perfect example we must follow. They went from hated to accepted in a few decades.

Let’s stop the fantasy of putting all our hope in the Supreme Court magically and suddenly deciding to throw out all registries. That is waaaaaaaay down the road. Putting a band-aid court decision on a deep infection just allows the infection to pop up elsewhere in the form a new laws that try to get around court decisions. If we don’t change society’s attitudes, we will play endless whack-a-mole fighting bad bills.

You are ignoring human psychology. Until people get to know us, they will have nothing to shatter stereotypes of registrants. By isolating and being angry you are feeding the stereotype of a registrant.

Politicians do anything they can for votes. They used to get lots of votes by creating anti-gay laws. Now it is very rare because gays are accepted in most of society. Do the search above and educate yourself in what REALLY HAS made social change.

By the way, even politicians can change! Over the years of ACSOL going to Sacramento and educating politicians, we have seen a MAJOR change in attitude as they get to see we are not monsters. There are fewer and fewer anti-registrant bills each year.

That didn’t happen because we stayed at home and seethed in our anger.

If you REALLY want to make lasting change and lessen the hysteria against registrants, do what the Bible says and show kindness to those who hate you. Be consistently pleasant to everyone, including those who are negative against you. We did that in Sacramento and it worked! Try it with your neighbors. It disarms people, because we are not following their script. Human nature makes it hard to maintain strong negative emotions against someone who is nice.

Roger, I think you just made my point for me. Unless you live in California or New York, most people in this country still view people of color as less than human, and gays as mentally ill. As for making friends with people, getting out there, telling the story, and talking to the media: I have been fired, (several times) physically attacked, stabbed, and had my property destroyed by putting myself out there. I think this clown from the south is a perfect example of why incrementalism and using the professional liars to save us is an absurd idea. We have bad law from SCOTUS now. It has been there for years. “Not punishment.” “Frightening and high.” Remember? Screwing around with the legislature is what got us the tiered registry bill that puts more people in harm’s way than it helps. This is absolutely crazy stuff. Take an honest look at the type of people we are relying on to do the right thing. This method is absolutely insane.

Sure “African Americans performed carefully-coordinated civil disobedience and told their stories to the media.”. And without Brown v Board of Education, they would still be doing so today. 70 years later.

And it had taken them what, 60 years, to undo Plessy v Ferguson.

It has been 16 years since Doe v Smith. Every single major decision goes back to that case, this issue’s Plessy v Ferguson.

Are you really going to suggest that PR efforts, and lobbying legislators, and supporting laws that make a grave injustice just a little bit more palatable for a select few, is going to achieve the goal? And exactly what is the goal?

If the end game is to abolish the registry, at what point is playing Whack-a-Mole futile? Can it be abolished? Did anyone in 1950s Alabama ever think that segregation could be ended? I was not there but I am guessing that was entirely unthinkable until Brown v Board of Education.

It is not that I or anyone here does not appreciate ACSOL and its leadership and members and supporters. But look at your own example.

In another post Janice had asked for opinions about strategy. I think it is pretty clear that the ONLY success this movement may, and I mean may, ever see is going to come from the courts – all the way to the top. Without a Brown v Board of Education event, every effort is simply sisyphian. I think it is time to put all eggs in that basket. Maybe not in time for many, but hopefully in less than 60 years.

“I think it is pretty clear that the ONLY success this movement may, and I mean may, ever see is going to come from the courts – all the way to the top. Without a Brown v Board of Education event, every effort is simply sisyphian.”

WRONG. You seem to be forgetting the courts are influenced as much by public opinion as the rest of society, and that impacts court rulings all the way to the top. We have the burden of undoing the ingrained belief of “frightening and high recidivism.” It is going to take mobilization on all fronts.

Brown v Board of Education was great and all but you seem to be forgetting it took far more than court rulings. What about the bus boycott? The March of Selma? The MLK I Have a Dream Speech? What about government intervention to enforce desegregation that did not involve the courts? The Little Rock Nine? What about when Roosevelt and Truman signed executive orders to end barriers to blacks joining the military and working for the government?

I imagine if the black community waiting around at home and threw their meager resources at attorneys in hopes of being carried to the promised land, the civil rights movement might not have been as successful, if at all.

If anything, this movement’s attitude of hiding behind attorneys and just waiting for Smith v Doe to be rehashed is doing this cause a great disservice.

I agree. But, it doesn’t even matter if “frightening and high” were true. The Registries would still be useless and even counterproductive. So why would anyone who actually cares about public safety ever support them, besides for the obvious immoral reasons.

@Derek Logue:
The big difference between the Civil Rights efforts movement any “RC movement” is that blacks could cause pain on society by such things as bus strikes and/or simply not showing up for work. Their cause also was a bit different than anything we could mount. They were asking simply to be treated equally despite having more melanin than others in society. We’re asking to be treated equally despite having broken some manner of law. They broke laws in order to effect change in the laws. We wish to effect change in the laws resulting from and after having broken a law.

That all said, I wholly agree it will not all get solved by courts and lawyers. A cultural shift will need to occur for the public to realize and accept the folly, harm, and futility of registries–sexual or otherwise. Ours has always been a punitive society, despite the self-backslapping we give about second chances. It will take time to effect change in the hearts and minds of the sheeple. I’m confident it’s happening. I’m likewise confident it will accelerate.

AJ: “We’re asking to be treated equally despite having broken some manner of law.” Yes, that’s true and so makes the struggle for gay liberation a much closer analog to our own since there were also laws against gays when that struggle began.

As for the courts vs. public opinion argument in this thread, I think that it is certainly true that both are needed. We have seen, with abundant historical as well as very recent court decisions that it appears to matter very little (in the immediate short term) if we win or not in court; people who run the government will do everything in their power to flout court rulings and to render our “wins” paper victories.

The problem with public opinion is that the public is extraordinarily ignorant about our issues and the consensus amongst them is that their laws and attitudes towards us are essentially correct.

This has to unconstitutional in every way shape and form, time to file a Class Action Lawsuit against Alabama. Just glad I don’t leave there, plus wouldn’t this qualify as a violation of the 4th Amendment? Search and Seizure.

@Bobby:
“wouldn’t this qualify as a violation of the 4th Amendment?”
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Not 4th Amdt., but it could readily be an 8th Amdt. issue, Cruel and Unusual punishment. I’m quite sure castration has historically been viewed as extreme punishment. Castration also implicates one’s fundamental right to a family, so it would be subject to “strict scrutiny” review by any court. This means the Government would need to show the it passed the law to further a “compelling governmental interest,” and must have narrowly tailored the law to achieve that interest. Given they’ve already tossed out the chemical version as a method to achieve the claimed compelling interest, they’ve already undermined the “narrowly tailored” argument. Even the chemical version, which likewise impacts one’s right to family, should be under strict scrutiny. At minimum it will impose a burden on someone because they will need Governmental approval to come off the drugs to procreate. In other words, Governmental approval to exercise one’s fundamental right. Good luck, AL.

The ignorant mind set of this man is frightening. He obviously isn’t even familiar with the laws that he is elected to vote on. How many offenses fall under “molestation?” Maybe if his 19 year old son has a relationship with a 15 year old girlfriend he can volunteer to throw the switch. Also, it seems to me that most of the death penalty cases that have been overturned through DNA evidence come from this part of the country. The entire reason most people oppose the death penalty is because too many people are wrongfully convicted by overzealous, under informed, fanatics like him. Just think of the Tawana Brawley case. Thank goodness this ignorant fool wasn’t overseeing that or we would have a bunch of tortured and dead innocent teens. This guy is scary.

Isn’t slavery still legal in Alabama? What a backwards state. if this goes into practice the lawsuits are going to be flying especially after people develop cancer from the drugs they are forcing them to take.

Alabama like many States will continue to be worse and worse because the People choose the Laws direction !!
I live in Bama and every where you find Corrupt hypocrites who are Cowards and the “I’ll do it my way” Back Country Law that is continually ABUSIVE towards it’s Citizens when it comes to Civil Rights and all forms of legal matters. ..THEY ARE AS SHIESTY AS THEY CAN BE !!
LAW SUITS ARE A JOKE !!!
HOW LONG DO YOU THINK IT WOULD TAKE IF THE CORRUPT LAW, JUDGES

Alabama like many States will continue to be worse and worse because the People choose the Laws direction !!
I live in Bama and every where you find Corrupt hypocrites who are Cowards and the “I’ll do it my way” Back Country Law that is continually ABUSIVE towards it’s Citizens when it comes to Civil Rights and all forms of legal matters. ..THEY ARE AS SHIESTY AS THEY CAN BE !!
LAW SUITS ARE A JOKE !!!
HOW LONG DO YOU THINK IT WOULD TAKE IF THE CORRUPT LAW, JUDGES and all Systems are blocking, Stopping and Forcing what They want ???
FOREVER ..THATS HOW LONG !!
Why does every Organization and People wait until People are destroyed before the DO THE RIGHT THING !

The constitution in Art1 sec 9,10, essentially castrated congressional use of ex post language in law making. Congresses ALL 51, utilized ” Was in prison for a….crime enumerated ” in the OMNIBUS94. This fact prominently exposed a blatant and whole disrespect for constitutional convention undertaken specifically to keep the union one free of tyranny from a powerful few.
Neither political party GIVES A DAMN concerning constitutional reverence. That is why Trump became prez, and will get a second term. President Trump recently stated ” no man who voted for the 94 crime bill could ever be elected. ” He is right on that score.

SOR was always more about the machine than the men. But they made an ideal scapegoat.

I’ve seen both extremes in here of saying that change has to come through changing peoples minds like it did with blacks and gay and the other side saying that it has to come through SCOTUS like Brown v Board of Education.

Well, first, the negative attitude towards us, unlike blacks and gays, will never change or get better because we actually did something wrong. So getting people to sympathize won’t work much at all.

Second, SCOTUS didnt fix much with Brown V board of Education to end segregation. It still existed in most souther states even 10 YEARS after that decision. It wasnt until the US legislators made it against the law 10 years later and forced change. SCOTUS is essentially powerless to enforce anything but can give legislators an excuse to eventually do the right thing and justify to upset voters.

The real solution is a combination. It will take court cases pushing real facts and demonstrate how these laws hurt everyone. It will take politicians using these court cases to justify doing the right thing in spite of uneducated people still against it. Before any of that, we need to get some public opinion behind us because otherwise judges will ignore facts and use any excuse to just defer to precident.

“Well, first, the negative attitude towards us, unlike blacks and gays, will never change or get better because we actually did something wrong. So getting people to sympathize won’t work much at all.”

It’s not so much the “we did something wrong” part, it’s in vogue to hate anyone with this label. Hate against us is both learned and taught It gives people a sense of empowerment because it’s socially acceptable discrimination

America is currently entrenched in a hypocritical, virtue signaling mini trend. Society and the media is all about love, acceptance, compassion and forgiveness … UNTIL the topic of sexual impropriety comes up.

I think this criminality needs to be fought at the legislatures, courts, and in public opinion.

I think the legislatures and courts part is obvious enough. But for public opinion, you are right that it is completely different from the situations of blacks and gays because they did nothing wrong. But how the “public” treated those people is exactly indicative of what the “public” has always been and are. They are not good people, in general.

We can’t expect most of the general public to not harass us (you termed it “sympathize” with us). That is because they aren’t good people and their jollies and flippant stupidity is always going to be their #1 priority. Most of them don’t care at all that Registries don’t work. They are just happy that people are being harassed and that they have people that it is PC to hate.

I think the way to sway the general public opinion is to make it completely Politically Incorrect to support Registries. We need to make most people understand that people who support Registries are awful, immoral idiots. Such that if someone says that they support Registries, people treat them as if they said they hate blacks or gays.

Luckily, I personally do believe 100% that there are nearly no informed, moral people who support Registries. I do believe that the more intelligent, successful, and decent that a person is, the less likely the person support Registries. I would really, really love to get a study done that shows who are the “people” who support Registries. I think it could then be used to show people that dipsh*ts support Registries and others don’t. Although, in Amerika these days it does seem as if way, way too many people wear their stupidity and lack of education as some perverse badge of honor. It was like those people who thought being called “deplorable” was just fine.

And as I’ve said here 100s of times, I think in order to win the war of public opinion that we need some common organization, slogans, tag lines, and memes. All that PR crud. The idea of a national RSOL, with state organizations, seems great. Like the ACLU. Perhaps that is a unified front? But don’t seem to see so much from them.

What’s the best degrading name for the Registries, etc.? I’ve often said “‘Sex Offender’ Witch Hunt”. But I feel that it kind of tame. What about?:

Most of us do all we can to hide and hope not to be noticed. Our families too. Most have diminished financial means due to these circumstances and won’t risk what little we have for any greater good.

Look how there are over 850000 of us and millions when you add in family yet still only a handful show up in these forums and even fewer at events.

Perhaps focussing on one easier federal district to succeed in so its court results differ from others and get SCOTUS to accept a case due to that split. I think SCOTUS has enough federalists to give us a chance and Thomas wants to undue his failures before he dies and goes to hell for bad decisions.

I am surpsied Janice appears to have given up on the IML fight unless there are things in the works she just can’t talk about in public. IML just looks like the easier victory chance since it affects similarly situated people so differently based on what state they are in. Its a clear equal protection issue and also lacks in due process for the burden it creates with lack of a way to get out of it.

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